Budget 3-6mm EP's with good eye relief?

[False Dawn]

Hi all, I'm getting my first telescope on Tuesday, a Skywatcher 130p heritage. As I've done a little reading while making my choice and now while waiting for it I've seen that one of the few common complaints is the 10mm EP not being very good at all, especially when used with a barlow, which is a little worrying for me. I didn't intend on buying any extras for the scope for awhile. What's the point in going out and buying a bunch of eye pieces and filters before I even know what the telescope is capable of or what I will need or want down the road?

But the truth is, I do intend to make Jupiter one of my primary targets, so I am going to want some high magnification when I'm lucky to have really good seeing, and I feel the 10mm and the barlow are probably going to be a disappointment in those moments.

So I apologize for my long winded intro, but basically I plan on buying a 3-6mm or 7mm eyepiece this week, but I'm on a budget, and seeing as this is my first proper scope and I'll be out there in the cold for the first time with it, I would like to keep the frustrations down to a minimal for a while, so I'd like the EP to have really good eye relief.  

So i guess the question is what would some of you suggest? whichever has the best eye relief the better for now I think. But sadly my budget is in the £15-30 range.  

Ebay has few PLOSSL EP's right now from 4-6mm that are at a good price. 

Then there's A skywatcher super-MA 3.6mm for £15.99

And a few Celestron EP's for £25 - £30 

What are your experiences with these? Any good alternatives? 

[John]

Hello and welcome to the forum,

Plossl eyepieces do not have good eye relief as their focal length gets shorter as the optical design limits it to around 80% of the focal length. 

Short focal length eyepieces that get good reviews on here and do have longer eye relief include the BST Explorer 5mm and the TS Planetary HR range. These retail for just a bit less than £50 per eyepiece and can be bought from the dealers Skies the Limit (the BST's) and Modern Astronomy (the TS Planetary HR's).

An alternative would be to use a good barlow lens with a longer focal length plossl. As well as increasing the magnification that eyepiece gives by 2x, 2.5x, 3x (depending on the barlow) the eye relief will actually increase slightly so keeping the combination more comfortable to use. A good barlow lens in the budget niche is the Revelation 2.5x 3-element barlow sold by Telescope House for £32. 

Hope that helps a bit 

[ronin]

As information the eye relief on a plossl is approximately two thirds of the focal length.

So a 3mm plossl (if there were one) would have about 2mm eye relief, a 6mm would have 4mm.

Eye relief is not from the top surface of the top lens but from the optical centre of the lens, which is inside the glass.

Decent/reasonable eye relief is considered 15mm and up to 20mm or more.

If you want or need eye relief then a short plossl is not really the eye piece to consider, until you are at 12mm, preferably 15mm, and above.

[NGC 1502]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

The Heritage 130 is a great scope, wouldn't mind one myself, nice & portable, capable of a lot.

But I'd avoid trying too high a magnification, will only lead to disappointment and frustration.

A 3mm eyepiece will give 217x, it would be a rare night for that to be effective with a 130mm reflector.

A 4mm would give 163x, maybe ok on a good night, but I'd be happy with a 5mm at 130x for high power. A smaller and sharper view easily trumps larger and fuzzier. With my 10" Dob viewing Jupiter, I use 120 - 170x, 200x or above doesn't see much use.  It's not only the capability of the scope, but how steady the atmosphere is.

The other issue is tracking your object. With your scope (and mine) you will be hand tracking, that gets more challenging the higher the power.

But this is only my opinion, see what others say.

Not trying at all to put a damper on things, but trying to help lessen the probs and save you a bit of cash.

Regards, Ed.

[False Dawn]

Hey thank you for the replies, everyone. Really good information here. 

You are not putting a damper on things, I think I was being too ambitious and something around 6mm to 7mm would be about as best I could do 'round here. I'm in a suburban neighbourhood close to the town, so seeing conditions are never going to be great. 

I'm just looking for something strictly for planetary viewing thats comfortable. I read the TMB 2 planetary EP's are good and there's a few of them on ebay right now for around £40, I can stretch to that.

I think a part of me is rushing to get one because I'm paranoid about the 10mm and barlow that come with the telescope, I've read so many complaints while reading information on google. I think if I hadn't of read about those complaints I wouldn't be rushing it TBH. 

[NGC 1502]

Hi again 'False Dawn'.   I see you are in Essex, don't know which part, but you would be welcome here http://www.cpac.org.uk/prog.asp

We are back from our Christmas break on Jan 8th for a chat and maybe a bit of observing, nothing formal.  You don't have to be an expert or none of us would turn up 

There's other clubs in Essex but ours is the best 

BTW, one of our senior members has just bought a Heritage 130, so you'd be in good company, and no need at all to think of the H 130 as a beginner only scope, he's been into astronomy for literally decades.

Cheers, Ed.

[RikM]

I wouldn't worry too much about the MA10 and Deluxe barlow that come with the Skywatcher scopes. Many people slate them but they're not actually that bad. Compared to a Plossl at the same focal length the MA10 is actually quite comfortable to use.

I think people try the eyepieces for the first time with the scope not particularly cooled down, optics not particularly well aligned, seeing conditions perhaps not the best, point the scope at Jupiter with an inexperienced eye and see a bright ball of mush and think...well the reviews were right, this eyepiece is rubbish. Give it a few sessions with the eyepiecs that come with the scope because your eyes need time to learn how to observe. You could put the best eyepiece in the world in there on your first session and you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference (other than the size of the field of view), you need some eyepiece time under your belt first to notice the differences.